LONDON. -- General
Michael Jackson, the new commander
of Kfor (the Kossovo peace force) was
allegedly involved in the events of
"Bloody Sunday" in 1972, the massacre of
Ulster Catholics by British paratroopers.

Not only that, but it appears he was in
charge of the platoon itself. The Blair
government has neither confirmed nor
denied the news. "We cannot reply on this
point because there is still an official
enquiry going on," reported a spokesman
for the Ministry of Defence.

"Bloody Sunday" was one of the blackest
pages in the recent history of Northern
Ireland: on January 30, 1972, in
Londonderry, thirteen Catholics fell under
the bullets of a platoon of paratroopers,
who had intervened in order to stop an
unauthorised protest march. The British
soldiers shot the marching Catholics from
the city walls.

According to their own version, they
were provoked. The episode has now become
part of Irish legend - it was celebrated
by the U2 rock group in their song "Sunday
Bloody Sunday". No one has ever been able
to ascertain what happened exactly,
however. This is why the Blair government,
on the emotional wave of the peace
agreement in Northern Ireland, promised to
open an official investigation, of which
Lord Saville was put in charge.

Now the people involved are being
questioned and the seventeen paratroopers
(sixteen of whom have now retired) have
obtained that their names be kept secret.
But only yestrerday the British media
reported that members of the Saville
commission had communicated five names to
the relatives of the victims.

It seems that General Jackson's was
among these. General Jackson enrolled in
the paratroopers' corps at the age of 19
and, like nearly all British officers,
spent some time in Ireland, at that time
torn by civil war between Catholics and
Protestants.